


the doll

by Inkonstantin



Series: Everyone whose name is written in this notebook will die (and everyone whose name isn't written there, too, since technically everyone dies) [3]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Codependency, Gen, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Other, Psychological Horror, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:41:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27710843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkonstantin/pseuds/Inkonstantin
Summary: Light is a mage and L is an animated doll.
Relationships: L & Yagami Light, L/Yagami Light
Series: Everyone whose name is written in this notebook will die (and everyone whose name isn't written there, too, since technically everyone dies) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026709
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i had this random-ass idea, and then my friend shamelessly encouraged and enabled me... 
> 
> i hope someone gets something out of the result?

Light is a mage. He’s a talented mage, a very powerful one. He’s so powerful that nobody can compare to him. 

Light is a very powerful mage, and he is very bored. There’s nothing worth doing, because everything is boring. He is so very, very bored. 

In a town in the woods at the top of a hill there’s a house where no one lives, so Light takes a big bag of his big city money there and buys it. There’s no real reason to do so, but there’s also no real reason not to. He just wants to get away from people, because they were very boring, and he is very tired of them. 

So he buys this old house, and he’s looking forward to living alone, by himself, away from people, because people are very boring. He could disintegrate them all with a snap of his magic-brimming fingers, it would be incredibly easy for him. Which is exactly why he doesn’t; because it would be easy, and it would be boring. 

So instead he buys that house in a town in the woods at the top of a hill where no one lives, and he plans to experiment with his magic, pushing the very boundaries of possibility. 

Exploring the house that he’s bought for himself, Light finds a broken doll. It’s a life-sized doll, as tall as he is when he lifts it up from its crumpled position on the floor. It’s not a particularly pretty doll; it has wild dark hair and flat black eyes, and it’s wearing a simple white long-sleeve shirt and baggy gray-blue pants. Light can’t imagine why anyone would have made such a doll. 

Still, he came here to this house to live alone and experiment with his magic, pushing the very boundaries of possibility, so he decides to try animating the doll with his magic. It’s considered forbidden magic to give life to non-living things—it’s essentially necromancy—that’s probably exactly why Light does it. 

The doll stirs and comes to life, looking at him with its flat black eyes that don’t blink. Light is lazy, and he doesn’t really care, so he calls the doll “L”, because it’s the first letter of his name, and the animated doll is essentially just an extension of himself. 

Or at least, the doll starts out that way. Light talks to the doll like he’s talking a version of himself, and the doll answers back like another version of himself. It’s still somewhat boring, because Light knows himself very well and the doll is consequently quite predictable, but it’s still better than talking with anyone else, because at least, even if he’s predictable to himself, he’s _intelligent._

So Light lives alone in that house, experimenting with his magic, and the doll that’s essentially just an extension of himself follows him around and comments. 

Gradually, though, something in the doll _changes._

It’s not just an extension of Light anymore; it’s _different._

Light can no longer predict it. The doll has its own _personality_ , now, its own _feelings_ , its own _thoughts_. 

It had happened gradually. Light hadn’t noticed, at first. When he does finally notice, he is greatly disturbed. 

He’d been out late, and when he’d returned, the doll was waiting up for him. Of course, it was a doll; it wasn’t like it slept. It’s flat black eyes were always open. 

He’d fixed himself a snack. The doll L had said that it would like one, too. Light had just stared at it. It wasn’t a particularly beautiful doll, it was really just odd, but it had a pretty mouth; still, it was a doll, it wasn’t like it could eat. It had looked at Light with its flat black eyes that were always open, and Light had been disturbed, because for the first time he realized he had no idea what it was thinking. 

But it was a doll; it didn’t actually think. It couldn’t actually think. He’d animated it with his magic, but that didn’t mean it was alive. It was probably just a small hiccup in the spell, causing it to occasionally act erratically. 

Light had gone to bed. But he hadn’t been able to sleep, so he’d headed downstairs and made himself some tea. The doll was there, following him and watching him with its flat black eyes that were always open, and with its pretty mouth it had told him disapprovingly that he hadn’t added enough honey. 

Light had had the absurd thought that of course a mouth as pretty as that would crave sugar. He’d shaken his head to clear it, chocked it off as the doll acting strangely due to his own tiredness, and gone to bed with his tea. The doll followed him, as it always did, with its pretty mouth and its flat black eyes that were always open. For the first time, Light felt unsettled at its nonliving stare. Before, he’d been sure that it was just an extension of him; now he wasn’t so sure. 

He was just tired. The doll would be acting normally once he’d gotten some sleep. 

Light wakes up, and the doll is not acting normally. The doll is perched there watching him with its pretty mouth and its flat black eyes that are always open, and it’s holding a cup of tea in its porcelain fingers. When Light takes the tea and sips it, it’s cold and tastes sickly sweet of honey. 

“Did you sleep well, Light?” the doll asks him, watching him with its flat black eyes that are always open. 

“Fine, thanks,” says Light, setting down the cup of sickly sweet, cold tea and trying not to feel unsettled. It was just a doll; what was making it move and speak was nothing but his own magic. It was just him. 

“That’s good that you slept fine,” the doll tells him with its pretty mouth. It tilts its head, its odd wild black hair falling into its smooth, porcelain face. “I wonder what sleeping’s like.” Light notices that there are dark smudges beneath the doll’s flat black eyes, and he wonders how he’d never noticed before. 

Light goes to make himself a cup of coffee, and the doll follows him. It tells him disapprovingly that he should add more milk and sugar. 

Over Light’s breakfast, they play chess. It’s the first time that the doll wins. 

Light’s fingers clench around the handle of his coffee mug. The dark liquid within has gone cold, and it trembles along with his hand. 

“You seem to be disturbed, Light,” remarks the doll, watching him with its flat black eyes that are always open. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m _fine,_ ” Light snaps at it. It’s just a doll; what was making it move and speak was nothing but his own magic. It was just him. 

How could he lose a game against _himself?_

“That’s good that you’re fine,” the doll tells him with its pretty mouth. “After all, if something were to happen to you, then I’d die, too.” 

Light looks at the doll. It has dark smudges beneath its flat black eyes that are always open, as if from countless sleepless nights. 

_“Who are you?”_ Light snaps at it, fingers clenched around the mug of his coffee, because he’d just played chess against a _doll_ and he’d _lost._

“Me?” the doll says with its pretty mouth, tilting its head so that its odd wild black hair falling into its smooth, porcelain face. “I’m L. I thought you knew that, Light.” 

Light trembles. He’s filled with rage, and it’s absurd, because it’s nothing but a _doll_. It’s nothing but a doll he’s animating with his own magic. 

“You’re shaking, Light,” the doll notices, watching him with its flat black eyes that are always open. “Are you cold?” With its pretty mouth, the doll says, “I wonder what it’s like to feel cold.” 

Light leaves. He’s furious with himself. He should have more control of himself than this. 

There have been murders occurring in the town in the woods. Light has been investigating. They seem to be magical of nature, people dying suddenly over heart attacks. Far too many to be any kind of a coincidence. Light is a very talented and powerful mage, and yet he still has not been able to uncover the murderer. 

He’s investigating, and he ends up at an antique store. In the store there’s a strange old man with a wandering eye and a withered hand. When he hands Light an old wooden box, he can hear the man’s old bones creaking. 

Light knows what he’ll find inside the box the moment that he sees that someone’s carved his name into the tarnished silver key. 

The doll with its pretty mouth and flat black eyes that are always open, he realizes, always follows him. 

He gets back late, and the doll is waiting up for him. Of course, it’s a doll; it doesn’t sleep. Its flat black eyes, underlined with dark smudges like dark bags from countless sleepless nights, are always open. On the lips of its pretty mouth are cake crumbs and sugar granules. 

“The murders in town,” Light says to it without preamble, staring into its flat black eyes and already knowing that he’s going to blink first. “What do you know, L?” 

The doll has a mug of coffee that’s white with sugar and cream. It’s as white as the doll’s smooth, porcelain skin. 

“Only a very talented, powerful mage could carry out such murders,” the doll tells him, tilting its head so its odd wild black hair falling into its face as white as the coffee adulterated with sickening amounts of sugar and cream. “Do you know any such mages that live in the area, Light?” 

Light must just not have been getting enough sleep. This is all absurd. 

He goes to bed, but the doll follows him. The doll always follows him. The doll is in his house and in his room and in his bed, and Light feels crazy. 

He wakes up, and the doll is in his eyes and in his arms and in his head, and Light decides that he’s had enough. 

He locks the doll in the wooden box and he puts the box in the fireplace and lights it. As the smoke fills up his tiny room, Light realizes too late that the one inside the box is him. 

But he’s not the world’s most talented and powerful mage for nothing. He magics himself out, and the doll, which always follows him, is there beside him. Light pants, coughing, smoke in his lungs, and the doll looks at him with its flat black eyes that are always open and says, “I wonder what it’s like to suffocate on smoke.” 

_“What are you?”_ Light gasps out, coughing, his heart beating wildly. 

The doll holds up an arm. Around its wrist, Light sees, is a manacle connected to a chain. The chain falls to the floor and snakes over it, to a manacle clasped around one of Light’s own wrists. Light jerks back, alarmed; the chain that is connecting them is yanked roughly, and the doll is yanked down on top of Light, falling into his arms. Light pushes it away roughly, yelling. The doll sits up jerkingly, looking over at him with its flat black eyes that are always open, head tilted so that its odd wild black hair falling into its smooth, porcelain face. 

“You should know, Light,” the dolls tells him with its pretty mouth as it holds up its manacled wrist and the chain which connects them, “that if I’m destroyed, then you’ll die, too.” 

Light’s hands clench in his hair as he screams. 

“I wonder what it’s like,” says the doll, looking at him with its flat black eyes which are always open, underlined with dark smudges as if from countless sleepless nights, “to be alive.” 


	2. Chapter 2

Light stood shakily. His heart was pounding. His chest was getting progressively tighter, like a snake that was constricting him, breath coming with more and more difficulty. 

Chained to his wrist was the doll. L. It stared at him with its flat black eyes that never closed, never slept. The dark bags beneath them—why were their dark bags on the face of a doll? 

Light felt so tired, his mind swam, his vision went in and out. He tried to stay on his feet. The ground slithered like a giant snake beneath his feet. 

“Careful, Light.” There was a cold hand on his arm, perfectly white like porcelain, absolutely cold, surprisingly hard and strong. “I can’t have you falling. You might break. That would be bad for me, see.” The chain connecting their wrists was rattled, shaken in front of his eyes. 

Light shook his head, swaying; that cold, hard hand held him up. “You’re just a doll,” Light croaked out. His mouth was dry, his voice cracked. “You’re just a _doll._ ” 

_“Am_ I?” That mouth—it was the only part of L that wasn’t odd, the only part that wasn’t somehow _flawed_. Who created a _flawed_ doll? Dolls should be beautiful—they weren’t real, so they should be _perfect_. Dolls shouldn’t look so disgustingly _human_. 

Light shook his head; that cold, white hand kept him from falling. _“Who are you, L?”_ he asked, meeting those flat, black eyes, lined with those _flaws_ —those dark bags from countless sleepless nights. But _dolls didn’t sleep_. Dolls didn’t _need_ to sleep. Light shook his head; his mind was swimming, his breathing coming with difficulty, hot and tight in his chest. _“What_ are you, L?” he said. _“What do you know about the murders?”_

The cold, hard, white hand tightens around Light’s arm; Light hears creaking. The hand’s grip loosens. 

“You should know about forbidden magic, Light,” says that pretty mouth. It’s the only pretty about L—the rest is so _flawed._ “It’s forbidden to awaken life in inanimate objects, for instance; but that’s not the only forbidden magic. While it’s forbidden to create humanity, it’s also forbidden to _give it away_. You know that there’s a price for practicing forbidden magic, right? That there are _consequences?_ ” 

Light shakes his head; he doesn’t understand. His breath is hot in his chest, it’s coming with more and more difficulty, his vision is fading in and out. 

“You should _sleep_ , Light,” says that voice, close in his ear—there’s _breath_ when L speaks, but it’s _cold_. Light remembers sugar granules and cake crumbs decorating those pretty lips—a doll shouldn’t be able to _eat_. “One of us has to,” L says. 

Light shakes his head, he tries to pull away; L doesn’t let him, his cold hand tightens harder around Light’s arm. 

“Stop fighting, Light,” says the doll, which has breath and can _eat_ , “I don’t want to break you.” 

“You’re a _doll_ ,” Light croaks out, and that pretty mouth smiles—it’s an _ugly_ smile. 

“Who’s the doll here, Light?” says L, looking at him with those dark eyes that are _always open_ , they _never_ close, there are _bags_ beneath them. “Have you looked in the mirror, Light?” 

Light has looked in the mirror—of course he’s looked in the mirror, he knows what he looks like, he’s—he’s _beautiful_ — 

Even when he’s barely gotten any sleep, he’s _beautiful_ , there are never any dark bags beneath his bags—

_Why are there dark bags beneath L’s eyes?_

“I need you to _sleep_ , Light,” says that voice, it’s so even, it’s not a _living_ voice, it’s utterly lacking in intonation, it’s utterly lacking in _feeling_ —“I need you to sleep for me, so that I don’t have to.” Those eyes are utterly black, they’re _always open_ , they don’t sleep, they’re not _alive_ —“Why else do you think I gave my life to a _doll_ , Light?” 

Light can’t breathe, his heart is—his heart is? He can’t hear a heartbeat. _Where is his heartbeat?_ And his breath is—he can’t _breathe_. His chest is still. _Where is his breath?_ “No,” he says, shaking his head, his vision is swimming, his eyes are— _“No. You’re_ the doll, L!” He knows this, he _knows_ this—he _has_ to breathing, he _has_ to have a heartbeat—“I’m human. I’m _human!”_

The white hand—it’s knobbly, its _spidery,_ and yet it’s strong, it doesn’t let Light’s arm go—who makes a _doll’s_ hands knobbly and spidery? How could a _doll_ made of porcelain be _strong?_ Light should be able to _break_ him with a _tug_ — 

_“I’m human,”_ Light repeats, he yanks at L’s arm, he tries to break free, he _should be able to break free_ —“You’re a _doll_ , L! I found you crumpled on the floor, and I animated you! I’m a mage! I’m _human!”_

“Is that what you really think when you look in the mirror, Light?” L asks him, and he traces a cold hand over Light’s face, his cheek, his jaw. “You’re _perfect_ , Light. Do you see the dark bags beneath my eyes?” L stares at him with those eyes, black and soulless, underlined with large dark bags, dark bags that look _puffy_ and _soft_ , although the grip of his hand on Light’s arm is so _hard_. “I need you to _sleep_ for me, Light,” L says. 

Light shakes his head, his vision is going in and out with blackness, he _can’t breathe_. “No, I—I’m _not_ a doll,” he says. He knows this; he _knows this_. “I can’t be a doll. I eat, I drink—dolls _can’t do that!_ ” 

“Do you really?” L asks him, looking at him with those hard, black eyes, but the dark bags beneath them look soft as _satin_. “You never add enough honey to the tea, or sugar and cream to the coffee; and by the time I’m able to, they’ve always gone cold.”

“No— _no!_ ” Light shouts it; he tries to pull away from L, he _should be able to pull away from L_. “I’m not—I’m _not a doll! You’re_ the doll, L! _You!_ I animated you! It’s _my_ magic!”

“Is that really what you believe, Light?” L asks him, and his eyes are black and soulless and sleepless. “If that’s the case— _undo it_. Undo your spell.” 

Light stares at him—he can’t _breathe_. “I—”

“You _can’t_ , can you?” L challenges him, but L is just a _doll_ , Light _animated_ him, L was nothing but a continuation of _himself_ — 

_(Then was he not technically a continuation of L?)_

_“I’m not a doll!”_ Light screams it, he tries to break away, he _should be able to break away._ “I’m _not!_ ” 

“Light,” L says evenly, grip on his arm remaining firm, strong and uncracking despite _porcelain-white_ fingers, and they’re so _knobbly_ and _spidery_ , they should _crack_. “I need you to stop.”

 _“I’m not a doll!”_ Light _screams it_. 

_“Light.”_ L grabs him, swings him, and Light finds himself pressed against the banister, staring down the stairwell to the ground three flights below. In his ear, he feels cold breath ghost: “If we fall… who do you think will be the one to _bleed_ , and who will be the one to _shatter?_ ” 

“I’m _not_ a doll!” Light shouts. He tries to break away, but L has him pressed between his body and the banister, and Light _can’t move_ , he can only scream, “I’m _not! You’re_ the doll, L! _You’re a doll!_ ” 

Light feels weak, he feels so utterly _weak_ , and his vision, it’s swimming, it’s filling with black spots, he can’t see, he can’t _think._

“You can feel the exhaustion, can you not?” ghosts L’s breath—L’s _breath_ —cold over his ear, L’s words: “ _My_ exhaustion. You saw how dark the bags beneath my eyes have become.” The manacle around Light’s wrist is tugged; Light can hear it clink, can feel its weight. It’s so _heavy._

“We’re _connected_ , Light,” says L, close in his ear. “If I die, then you die. If you break on me, then I will also die. I need you to _sleep_ for me, Light.” 

As the blackness crashes over him, pulling him under, Light hears L’s voice: “I need you to _sleep,_ so that _I don’t have to.”_


	3. Chapter 3

The rain beat on the roof. 

_Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Pitter patter._

L tilted his head, wild dark hair falling into his cold face. In the distance, he could hear the bells tolling. A wedding? Probably not in the rain. A funeral? Death did not wait for the weather. 

Light was there, locked to L’s wrist, the red chain of fate stretched between them. Light was laid there, unconscious and beautiful, perfect doll that he was. L brushed cold fingers through the doll’s perfect hair, traced perfect cheekbones, perfect eyebrows above perfect glass eyes, before pulling his fingers back to his mug of coffee, made saccharine and white with sugar and cream. 

For years, sugar had been the only sweetness and pleasantness that existed in his life. Now he also had Light, but that didn’t make him crave the sugar any less. Sometimes, even Light could make him feel so very bitter. Sugar was the only thing that never failed to help. 

L took a sip, looking down at Light’s unconscious, perfect face. The sweetness unfolded on his tongue like snow-clouds drifting beautiful snowflakes, but without the cold. Now that L had given up his life to the doll, he no longer ever felt cold. The drink was ever so sweet; it wasn’t really coffee anymore, now was it? Not like he needed it, now that he no longer needed to sleep. 

All he’d wanted was to leave behind his humanity, when he’d had the old man Watari construct for him a doll. 

It was difficult, being the most powerful mage in the world. Nobody had compared to L. He’d been ever so lonely, and ever so bored, and ever so terribly _bitter._

He hadn’t wanted the company, when he’d had the old man Watari construct for him a doll; all he’d wanted was to leave behind his humanity. He simply hadn’t wanted to die, and he was tired of having to carry out such mundane tasks of existence as having to _sleep_. He was the most powerful mage in the world; he didn’t feel himself human, because he didn’t _relate_ to other humans, and so all he’d wanted, in having a doll to give his life was to, was to be even less human. That was all that he’d wanted, when he’d given the doll Light his life. 

Only, Light had ended up becoming… something _more_. Technically he should only have been an extension of L’s own personality, and yet—Light was _something else_. Maybe he was still a part of L’s own consciousness, a part that he hadn’t previously had any access to, but even if he was he was a piece that L couldn’t predict, found endlessly stimulating and endlessly _delightful_. The doll, Light, was L’s first and only friend. Even if he wasn’t anything more than a figment of L’s light and imagination, he was _there_ , and he would never and _could never_ leave L. 

It was only problematic, sometimes, when the doll picked up too much of L’s restlessness, failing to sleep and causing difficulties for the both of them. The spell only worked because Light, perhaps an exorcised part of L’s own ego, believed that _he_ was the human, and _L_ was the doll. The relationship only worked because Light thought that he was independent. 

While Light slept for him, so that he could stay awake and never feel tired or suffer the death-state of unconsciousness, L worked on reweaving and repairing the spell, so that when Light awoke, he would remember nothing about being a doll rather than human. 

They’d have to move again, soon. They’d only come back to the town in the woods so that the old man Watari could make repairs to Light’s body. But the consequences of the spell that allowed L to have the doll experience the state of life so that he didn’t have to were far too noticeable in such a small population: the consequences of such a nature-defying spell being the random deaths of other humans within a certain distance. It was best to keep to big cities, and to move to a different one every few years. 

They’d be leaving the town in the woods, soon, moving back to one of those big cities. There the two of them would hunt down dark mages that were causing problems in society, because L could not allow any mages to become anywhere near as dark as himself. Light would aid him, thinking himself to be the most powerful mage in the world; everybody believed Light to be the most powerful mage. Nobody knew that L existed, not anymore. L preferred it that way. And Light, in his belief in his absolutely superiority? Light, perfect as he was, being a perfectly-crafted doll without a single human flaw aside from having to _sleep_ , was _beautiful_ in that belief. He enjoyed it in a way that L himself had never been able to, and which L delighted in witnessing. And since Light believed that he was human and that L was a doll which he’d animated against the laws of magic, Light was the one who interacted with other humans, and L didn’t have to. The only entity L had to interact with was the doll. And the doll was perfect. 

L finished the spell, and finished the drink that was more cream and sugar than actual coffee, and he pulled the doll’s perfect head into his lap and stroked the doll’s perfect hair. 

When the doll finally awoke, over 27 hours later, L said, “How did you sleep, Light?” 

“Fine, thanks,” the doll said, sitting up. He looked around, frowned, and asked, “Why was I asleep on the floor?” 

L just shrugged. “How should I know?” he said. “I don’t sleep, after all. You just fell asleep here.” 

The doll looked at him with its perfect glass eyes, and L tilted his eyes, musing, “I wonder what it’s like to sleep,” because he always wondered what it was like to suffer such necessities of life and humanity when one was actually nothing more than an animated doll. 

It was still raining, and the rain on the roof pounded _pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter_. L could still hear the sound of bells. They’d have to wait for the rain to stop, before they were able to leave and head to a big city. Light may have felt human, but his body was still that of a doll, and they had to be careful. While they stayed, there would be more deaths of people in the town, but with the reweaving of the spell which animated it, Light should have forgotten about those, now. 

Light got up and went to the kitchen, where he made himself a cup of black coffee which he didn’t drink, and they played chess, and Light won. L always loved it when Light won, because losing to anyone, ever after all these years with the animated doll at his side, was still a novelty to him. 

“What is it like,” Light asked, looking at him with his perfect glass eyes, “to be a doll, L?” 

L tilted his head, dark hair falling into his face, and said thoughtfully, “Sometimes I get bored, when you’re asleep.” But that boredom was still better than the death-state of slumber, or so L found. 

Luckily the doll, Light, did not seem to agree, and told L, “I pity you then, L.” 

“You shouldn’t pity something which isn’t alive,” L said in response, and the doll’s smile, like everything about it, was inhumanly perfect. 

The rain on the roof pounded _pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter_. In the distance, funeral bells rang, because death did not wait for the weather. 

They’d leave the town in the woods as soon as the rain went as silent, and the bells would become silent after left. 


	4. Chapter 4

They leave the house at the top of the hill in the town in the woods once it stops raining. Not many belongings were brought, and even fewer were bought, so there’s not much to pack up. 

L is scratching at his arm, because there’s an itch under his skin. A chip breaks off beneath his fingers, brittle and white, leaving small nick in his arm. He looks at the chip of ceramic that has come off in his hand and hurriedly pulls down the sleeve of his shirt, turning his gaze away, chip clenched in his hand. He crouches down and sets it on the floor, so it won’t make any noise, and then flicks it lightly with a finger, sending it under a piece of furniture. 

“L?” Light asks, coming into the room. He sees L crouched there next to the old settee and sighs. “Come on, L,” he says, and holds up a long, dark cloak. “We’re leaving.”

L stands and comes over, movements stilted and jerky, and Light places the cloak around his shoulders, lifting the hood and then setting it down over L’s head so that it obscures his face, nearly completely hiding his eyes. 

“I can’t see,” L complains. 

“You don’t need to,” Light tells him, huffing. “You’re just a doll, after all.” 

L’s hand goes to his arm, where under his sleeve there’s a chip missing in the hard white. Light takes his hand and guides him to the door. 

“You’re going to have to put on boots, L,” he says. 

“They won’t fit my feet,” L mumbles. He removes his hand from his arm, trying to forget about it. He’s been afraid of this happening for a while, now. He’s prepared himself for this. Or so he thought. 

Light’s hand on his face his warm, thumb brushing over L’s cold cheek. “There are boots made especially for dolls you know, L. I had the old man Watari at the antique shop make someone for you.” He has L sit down, and he puts the boots on L’s feet, and then he helps L up again. His hand in L’s is ever so warm. 

He leads L out of the house, to a car that’s waiting for them, and L follows along, keeping his gaze on Light, unable to have closed his eyes against the sight even if he’d wanted to. 

“Mosquito,” he murmurs, because he sees one on Light’s neck. Light slaps it, and as he pulls his hand away there’s a small smudge of blood on his palm. 

“Thanks,” Light says, and he wipes his hand off on his pants, and L can only stare with eyes that can’t close and wonder whose blood it was. 

Light helps him into the car, and then he sits beside him, wrapping an arm around him.

He pulls L against him, and he’s warm. 


	5. Chapter 5

There’s dark red, and dark green. The colors intertwine, in a single plant. The plant almost looks plastic, as if it were fake, but it’s actually real. 

L looks at this fake-looking real plant, with its waxy leaves of dark red and dark green, and he thinks that it’s a lot like him and Light. 

It’s a decorative plant, and there are fake versions of it that look just as real (just as fake) as the real thing. If you put them next to each other, side by side, it would be impossible to tell which was which. 

It really is an awful lot like him and Light—except that he and Light, they _switch._

Light is not an idiot. He knows that there’s strange magic intertwined between him and L, thick and elaborate like dust-filled spiderwebs. 

There are strange inconsistencies, and strange changes: the way L never sleeps, and the way Light always feels so tired; the dark smudges beneath L’s eyes, and the way they seem to be lighter or darker depending on the day (or night); the coldness and hardness of L’s ceramic-pallid skin versus crumbs and sugar granules that sometimes decorate his pretty mouth; the way all the rest of L is flawed, despite the fact that he’s a doll; how perfect Light can see that he is, every time he looks at his body or into the mirror; how Light feels warm, and yet sometimes realizes that he can’t—or _doesn’t_ —breathe. 

There are strange scenes, which fill Light’s mind as he sleeps and L watches; strange scenes, where Light is telling him that he’s the doll, and they feel like they’re memories. Light watches L carefully, and he sees L start to grow slower, sees the ways his movements start to become more jerky and sporadic, the way his flat black eyes become more and more lightless. As L is changing, Light can feel changes in himself, too: he can feel the way he becomes less and less tired, the way he has more and more energy, the way he feels warmer and warmer and his movements become more and more fluid. 

Light _feels_ it as he starts to truly breathe, as a heart he’d always _thought_ he’d heard started _truly_ to beat; something in the elaborate spiderwebs threaded between them has _shifted_ , or perhaps it’s the dust which weights them—something has _shifted_ , and Light _feels_ all the power fall, from L’s hands, into his. 

It’s _magic_ which fall into his hands—and also _life_. When Light realizes what’s happening, what’s _been_ happening, he throws his head back and _laughs_. He _laughs_ , and L just sits there, his head fallen to the side like a limp marionette, watching him with flat black eyes that can no longer close. 

“You’re an _idiot_ , L,” Light tells him, grinning in his triumph as he raises a hand, curling his fingers and sapping all the rest of the life from L’s body. “Why ever did you begin giving your life to a _doll?_ Did you not realize that I would one day take it all from you?!” Light _laughs_ , because he’s _won_ —maybe he’d once been a doll, but L had given him a part of his life, but now Light was taking _all_ of his life, and so now it was _L_ that was the doll, while _Light_ was _fully alive_. 

The once human mage L, who is now nothing more than a doll, looks at him with his flat black eyes which had once been alive but were no longer, and says to him, “In the end, Light, _you will be like I was._ ” Then L falls completely limp, a completely _lifeless_ doll, without a single trace of animation, and Light is _fully alive_ , without a single trace of the inanimate doll from which he’d been created, and Light _laughs_. 

“I _won_ , L,” he grins, absolutely thrilled, absolutely _triumphant_. “You were an _idiot_. How could you not realize that giving your life to a doll was _dangerous?_ And now you’re dead, and _I’m_ alive! You _idiot._ ” Light _laughs_ , because he has all the magic of the greatest mage in the world at his fingertips—he _is_ now the greatest mage, not just that mage’s magical creation, and it’s so terribly _ironic_. 

“What a _failure,_ ” Light sneers at the inanimate, lifeless doll which had once been the greatest mage in the world, and now is nothing more than porcelain and plastic put together in the guise of a humanly-flawed frame. 

But Light—Light is _doll-perfect_ , and yet he’s _completely_ , absolutely _alive_ , and he has all the magic in the world at his fingertips, and he _laughs._

The random heart-attacks which had once always followed them have stopped—there is no more forbidden, dark-magic spell to rip the life from others. Light is perfect, and the world has been restored to balance. 

Light keeps the inanimate doll that had once been L as a trophy. He lives his life, _his_ life, his _life_ , as the greatest mage on earth. 

L was such an _idiot_ , to give something like that up. Light will never do the same. 

Being dead is really just the same as being asleep; L had always hated the latter, so he’d always wanted to avoid the former. It isn’t a surprise, then, that when he wakes up from death, he’s just as pissed as he’d always been whenever he’d woken up from sleep. 

He looks up at Light, who is standing over him with an utterly furious, murderous expression, and L can’t help but say vindictively, “Now you get it, _don’t you_ , Light?” 

Light sneers at him. “How could you _do something like that_ to me?” he snaps, and his eyes, bright and alive, are furious. 

L looks at him, feeling nothing, and says, “For the exact same reason you’re doing this to _me_ , Light.” 

On the bedside table, there’s one of those plants, either real or fake, in dark red and dark green. L doesn’t know which. 

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. If it’s real, it will die without care; if it’s fake, it will never fade, no matter how much it’s neglected. 

L had never wanted to care for himself, because there was no reason to. So he’d neglected himself, and given himself instead to a doll. That doll, with the care of the living, had then become alive, and L—completely neglected by it—had died. 

Now L has some amount of life again, and he _knows_ why. Because he was given life for the exact same reason that he’d given the doll _Light_ life. 

Light _sneers_ at him, furious, and L smiles and says with absolute certainty, _“You wanted me,”_ and then adds, quieter, “an _equal._ ” 

Light had been happy, he’d been _ecstatic_ at being fully alive. No longer was he a simple _puppet_ , controlled by L’s magic—no, he was his _own being_ , he was _alive_ , and now L, an inanimate doll, had _no hold over him_. None whatsoever! He was free to do whatever he wished, whatever _he_ wished, knowing that it was _him_ and _not L_. It was _he_ who was the most powerful mage in the world, and he could do _anything!_

And then, after months—he’d tried to change the world, he’d _tried_ , but humans were all so _flawed_ , they were so _corrupt_ and so _stupid_ , they _couldn’t be changed_ , on top of that they weren’t, Light realized, even _worth it_ —after _months_ Light realized, one night, in a heart-pounding realization—a _truly_ heart-pounding realization, because he was _completely alive_ —that _there was no point in being the most powerful mage in the world._

What was the _point_ when he could destroy _anyone_ in _any_ imaginable number of ways, and yet it still _would change nothing?_

What was the _point_ when he could do _anything_ and yet there was no one to _understand_ or to _appreciate it?_

What was the _point_ when he was _the most powerful mage in the world_ , and yet he was still so incredibly, absolutely _human?_ So human that he _desired_ to change the world; so human that he _desired_ someone to share it with? 

Being _human_ was nothing but _wanting what one couldn’t have_ , and Light couldn’t help but _realize why L had hated it._

He couldn’t help but realize why L had given a doll life. 

He wasn’t entirely sure if it was out of _resentment_ that he revived L, because L had given him the cursed state of _life_ when he’d been nothing but a _doll_ , or if it was out of human _loneliness_ that he revived L, because L had been an _equal_ to him, both in regards to intelligence and to magic, in a way that no one else in the world was even _capable_ of being—that kind of stimulation could come from nowhere but _Light himself_ —Light _himself_ , just as _he_ had come from L. 

Were they really any different from each other? Were they not actually one in the same? Had they not simply separated a single self into two, in order to have _some_ kind of equal interaction in a world so far below them? 

Light gave the doll which had once been L part of his life, because he was _angry_ , and he was _bored_ , and he was _furious_ , and he was _lonely_. 

Life _sucked_ —and yet: Light didn’t want to _die._

The doll L’s flat black eyes regained some amount of life, though they could not close, and he stirred, meeting Light’s gaze with consciousness and saying, “Now you get it, _don’t you_ , Light?” 

And Light _did_ , and he _hated L for it_ —for giving him life, when he’d been nothing more than an inanimate _doll_ —and yet— 

Light didn’t want to just go _back_ to that state. “How could you _do something like that_ to me?” Light snapped at him, and yet he _knew why_ , and he _hated_ L for it, and yet— 

If L _hadn’t_ , then he would _never have existed_ , and if he’d never existed, then—

“For the exact same reason you’re doing this to _me_ , Light,” the doll L said, animated only partially with life, his eyes flat and black and incapable of closing, and yet his mouth—his _pretty_ mouth, the _only_ thing that was pretty about him— _smiled_ , and he said, “You _wanted_ me: an _equal._ ” 

And Light knows—he _knows_ , and he _understands_ , and he— 

He _hates_ L, and yet he _loves him_ , because L is the one who _made_ him exist in the world, and L is the only thing in the _world_ that has ever made that existence _worth it._

It’s _L’s_ fault that he exists, and it’s _L’s fault_ that he _wants_ to exist, and so— 

It’s only fair that L exists _with him._

“You should be careful,” L tells him, watching him with that pretty mouth curved in an ugly smile, and everything _else_ about him his ugly, too, is ugly and _human_ , and yet he’s nothing more than a _doll_ , and yet, unlike any human, he has _intelligence_ that matches Light’s, and _magic_ that matches Light’s. Because they’re _part_ of each other, aren’t they? Only one humanity there to split between them, but so much _power_ and so much _intelligence_ , that even split between _two_ it’s almost _too much._

“If you give me too much life,” L tells him, “then _I’ll_ become alive, and you’ll be nothing more again then a doll.”

And Light throws his head back and _laughs_ , because he _knows_ now, he _knows_ : “You’d just give me life and bring me back, L,” because he understands _everything_ now, and L couldn’t exist any better without an equal than _he_ could. 

They really were one and the same, weren’t they? “There’s only one humanity between us,” Light notes, looking into those flat, black eyes which have no eyelids to close. “And yet it’s too much for one alone, is it not? Even that _one_ humanity is so great that it can only be split between two,” and he _laughs_. “We can only exist when we’re not entirely human, now can’t we?!” 

L just looks at him and _smiles_ ; his mouth is really the only thing about him that’s pretty. “I hope you don’t mind being the one to sleep,” he says, “because I’ve always hated that.” 

“I’ll be the one to sleep if you’ll be the one to eat,” Light says back; “I’ve always hated that.” 

And L just _smiles_ , and everything about him is so humanly _flawed_ but that _mouth_ is so _pretty_ (it tells such beautiful lies). 

“I consent to these terms,” L says, and Light just snorts, because: “As if you _wouldn’t._ ” 

After all, they really were one and the same. 

L looks at the plant on the beside table, waxy dark red and dark green, and he asks Light: “What do you think is the main difference between a fake flower and a real flower?” 

Light follows his gaze, and he says: “Once can die, and one can’t.” 

L says, “Does it matter, then? Is there any reason to have a real flower, when a fake flower will do?” 

Light shrugs, and says, “The real flowers look more alive, don’t they? What’s the point of having a flower that looks fake?” 

L shrugs, and says, “But what if a fake flower looks real? Or if a real flower looks fake? What’s the difference, in the end?” 

Light shrugs again, and says, “The real flower you have to take care of so that it continues to look fake; the fake flower you don’t have to take care of, and yet it still looks real.” 

L _smiles_. “So is there any reason to have a real flower, when a fake flower would do?” he asks. 

Light looks at him, and says, “A fake flower could serve the same purpose as a real flower, in terms of decoration; but a fake flower could never serve the same purpose as a real flower in terms of care. If you want to _care_ for something, then you need a real flower. It’s only if you just want to _look_ at something, without any investment, that you would require a fake flower.” 

L hums: “And I guess there’s no real need to be alive without that sense of _investment_ in something outside of yourself, now is there?” 

“Yeah, I’d say that if you need a reason to stay alive, a real flower would probably suit you better,” Light agrees. And he smiles: “Only if you have so many other reasons to be alive that it bogs you down would it be beneficial to have a fake flower.” 

L looks at the dark red and green flower on the bedside table, and he says: “That must be a real flower, then?”

And Light _laughs_ , looking at him with bright brown eyes that had once been made of glass: “No, L; that’s a _fake_ flower.” 

And L looks back at him and says, “I didn’t think you had so many reason to be alive that they bogged you down, Light.” 

And Light just smiles at him, a perfect smile worthy of a doll, and says, “But I have _you_ , L.” 

And L would laugh in response, but he has no lungs no breath, and so he just smiles, the senseless, beautiful smile of a doll. 

And Light wraps an arm around him, pulling L against him, and he presses their pretty, lying mouths together, and he’s _warm_. 

And yet as he holds L, he becomes ever so slightly colder. 


End file.
